SID: Hello. I’m here with Pastor Todd Smith, from the North Georgia Revival. It’s unbelievable, a little sleepy southern town in Georgia. Sometimes he’ll have more people on a Sunday night for the water baptism service than are in the entire town. It’s a matter of fact, why? Because they have found it’s like a point of contact, when they go in the waters of mikvah, of baptism, and come out, many are healed. Tell me your favorite miracle that’s happened recently.

TODD: It was a gentleman that had 280 cancerous tumors in his bones.

SID: 280?

TODD: 280 cancerous tumors in his bones. He was so sick, he could not even make it to the revival. His wife came to be baptized as a point of contact for her husband.

SID: He didn’t even come.

TODD: He did not even come. Hospice was at his house. He had two to three weeks to live and his wife got baptized and we sent her home with the towel, anointed it, and said, “When you get home, as a point of contact, lay it on his body.” And after just a few minutes, after she laid that towel on his body, began to pray for him, the pain lifted off of his body. Goes the next day—

SID: He must have been in excruciating pain.

TODD: Excruciating pain. I’m telling you, Sid, to hear the testimony. Goes the next day to get a PET scan. They wanted to see what the cancer was doing in his body. I heard with my very own ears, the doctor’s phone call to the couple. She says, “I’m looking at the old PET scan and the new PET scan. I’m looking at the old PET scan and the new PET scan.” And she said, “We cannot find any bone tumors, cancerous bone tumors in his body.” Completely healed and walking in full strength today.

SID: And again, how long did he have to live at the hospice?

TODD: Two to three weeks, they said at most.

SID: And what did letter say from the hospice?

TODD: The letter the hospice sent said that this isn’t curative. And they gave him a window of six months because they said, “We may be there six months, but we’re looking at a two to three week window until he dies.”

SID: You get that? The power of God is so awesome. God did that. Now, as a Southern Baptist, you are as strong against speaking in tongues as you are strong for, “God is a miracle-working God today.” How bad was it? If I had walked up to him and said, “I want you to start speaking in a language you’ve never been taught. Here look [foreign language].” What would you have done to me?

TODD: I would have said, “Sid, you’ve lost your mind.” I would’ve said you’re crazy. In fact, I mocked people that spoke in tongues. I scorned them. I literally told our congregation, “Don’t do it. It’s of the devil.” That’s what I spoke as a leading Southern Baptist pastor that was pastoring one of the fastest growing churches in the state of Georgia. But Sid, in the midst of it all, I got hungry for God. I got thirsty for the Lord. And when I began to read my scriptures without my denominational glasses on, it became real to me that the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues was valid for today.

SID: Tell me briefly how you got filled with the spirit.

TODD: Well, after a year and a half of research, I’m talking about—

SID: You are really a cerebral guy.

TODD: I’m thinking, “I want the real and I want the authentic.” So I had this copious research and I came to the conclusion that it was real. And I went to a Pentecostal prayer meeting. I did. And that’s the last place…

SID: I won’t tell anybody.

TODD: Yes. Listen, that’s the last place that a Southern Baptist pastor ought to be. And there were four Pentecostal pastors there and they ended up laying hands on me. And one gentleman weighed 140 pounds soaking wet, put his index finger on my forehead. And he said, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Instantly at that moment, the Holy Ghost came upon me. I’m falling out in the spirit and I began to speak in tongues. And my life, since that moment Sid, has never been the same. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me outside of my salvation experience.

JOAN: My hair never moves!

Audience: [laughing]

JOAN: It’s like concrete!

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: The lady that’s been doing my hair has done it for 40 years! [laughs]

Audience: Oh wow. Oooh.

JOAN: She said, “I can do this hair in my sleep!” [laughs]

Audience: [laughs]

JOAN: But God is still doing the same thing in my life as He did when I was a little girl! Do you know how many people we had at our Christmas dinner this past Christmas? Guess! Just take a guess!

Audience: [responds]

JOAN: How many?

Audience: [responds]

JOAN: A thousand?

Audience: Oooh!

JOAN: How many? Five thousand? All right. Go on.

Audience: [responds] 10,000!

JOAN: How many? 10,000? How about 32,000!

Audience: Wow! Whooo! [clapping]

JOAN: And I don’t have a bank account! Oh, I’ve got a bank account but there’s nothing in there!

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: And I pray in every year the food for 32,000 people! When you get 32,000 pounds of anything that you’re going to feed 32,000 people.  who’s going to cook it? Where are they going to cook it? God always makes a way! And I’m telling you the truth! I’m not exaggerating that! I’m not telling you something that isn’t possible with all of you! I’m telling you there is nothing impossible with God and when you keep your hand in His hand and don’t let go because you want to do your own thing for a minute. Don’t let go because you think you’ve got it taken care of. Never take your hand out of His hand! Never stop following His voice! Never! Never! Never! Linda just called. She was in love with my husband or maybe she wasn’t in love cause she didn’t keep him long. 

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: I was the mediator and I wound up with him! I’m going to take her number and keep it on my phone in case I want to give him back!

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: [laughs] Frank, I love you! Even though there were times I wish I had somebody to give him to give him to! [laughs]

Audience: [laughs]

JOAN: Oh, he is so cute! Do you know who Frank is? Now he’s my husband, of course, but none of you have ever seen him? Oh, he’s got the most beautiful blue eyes! They’re like pools. Just fresh, beautiful. And he’s got the cutest smile. And you know what? He loves everything I cook for him!

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: Everything I cook! Did you girls and guys ever eat a tomato sandwich?

Audience: Yes.

JOAN: Isn’t that the best on toast with butter that thick and a tomato that kinda jumps in that butter? I just fixed him a tomato sandwich. It was the best thing we had all day!

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: God is with you! [singing] “He’s here right now! He’s here right now!” So if you’ve come with a bad leg or a bum arm or a blind eye or deaf ear. If your back is in excruciating pain right now. Or if your husband’s just taken a hike with the girl down the street. It makes no difference! God almighty, the creation of all heaven and earth. His Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is here! He’s there! He’s here! He’s here! They’re here! They’re here! Oh my gosh! Sid, They’re here in your studio! My! My! Right now there’s one with a hip and you’ve had a lot of pain in that hip. You can feel that hip changing right now! And I’ll get back to Linda and I’ll call you the next time Sid invites me and I’ll tell you how it ended. Okay?

Audience: [laughter]

JOAN: We’ve got to renew that 60-year friendship! We’ve got to renew that! I said to her, “I’m just now walking into a studio and the man’s name is Sid Roth. Do you know who that is? Thinking she’d say, “Oh yeah, I watch him!” She said, “Oh no. I never heard of that.” Well honey, where have you been? Where have you been? You’ve never heard of Sid Roth?  He’s a man of God. He’s a man that shouldn’t have but did and look where he is!

Audience: Amen!

JOAN: He’s a Jewish man! Look at it! Look at this! Look at this studio! Look at the cameramen. Look at the world that he’s touched beyond any place we could ever get to!  

KEITH: Well, it started with the Lord asked me a question, because I was hungry, and it was a different kind of hunger. It wasn’t desperation. It was supernatural hunger that the Lord initiated. And He actually said to me, “Do you want to know the Holy Spirit like I know Him?” Of course, that caused me to say, “Well, how do you know Him?” I dived into scripture and started going into the scripture and studying everything there was. And so, I’m in a revival meeting, and during worship, I’m caught up in this encounter and I see this busting, big, huge angel in the vision. Now, I’m not used to these types of visions. I’m going, “What is going on?” And all of a sudden, He says, “Open your mouth,” and He threw this book-like scroll thing, to me, and I ate that scroll book. And I sat down, and even my staff and my wife said, “What just happened to you?” I said, “I ate a book or something,” and so that was the first encounter.

Of course, immediately, I went into the scripture to see what is this? What is taking place? And then, the next encounter was I get up early in the morning and felt to go to the office. I walk into the front door, into the foyer of our office, and we have a long hallway, and the office is filled with the tangible, fiery, electrical presence of the Lord. I kicked off my shoes—

SID: And by the way, as you’re speaking, I can feel it’s almost like you relive it when you say it, but you relive it experientially. But go ahead.

KEITH: That’s right. And as I’m walking, I look down the hallway, and there the big angel was. Not in a vision. I wasn’t having a vision. He was there. Now, you think I’d say, “Cool.” No. I was undone. I mean, I was shaking. I dove into my office and—

SID: I’m sorry. I have to ask you something. What did he look like? Did he look like a real person? Could you see through the angel?

KEITH: No, I couldn’t see through him. He looked like a person, but he was extremely huge. He was probably at least seven to eight foot tall, really strong in his physique, but—

SID: That’s a little intimidating.

KEITH: Well, not only that. He exerted authority. It wasn’t just his size. He didn’t have a look like, “Hi, how you doing?” He had his arms crossed just like that, looked at me like that. It was undoing. I mean, it wasn’t like, “Oh wow, an angel.” No, I dove into my office and immediately went into a series of visions from the Holy Spirit about the counsel of God. And then, after the Holy Spirit…

SID: Excuse me, what’s the counsel of God?

KEITH: Well, I had been praying, “Lord, when I go into cities and regions, I don’t want to just preach a message. I want to preach that builds the kingdom in that area, in that group of people, so I need your counsel.” And so, I had been really asking for that. And when I was in my office, it was amazing, it was like the Lord pulled down these screens in heaven and I could see it. And He said, “From this point on, you’ll have my counsel.” That’s what He told me. And I asked the Holy Spirit, I felt the Holy Spirit lifted from me, and I said, “What about the guy in the hallway?” And He said, “Well, you need to see because he has names written on each shoulder and his legs.” And so, I’m sure all of heaven’s laughing at me. It wasn’t like, “Let me just check it out.” I peeked around the door to see if he’s there. Sure enough, he’s still there.

And so, I jumped out there and I looked at that angel, and sure enough, he had strength, stature, kingdom dominion. And as soon as I saw the names, he was gone. But I knew that was an invitation to the Lord for me to begin to study what is the strength and stature. And what the Lord showed me what was coming, we could not, and I could not, facilitate this out of my own strength, out of my stature, to see kingdom dominion. So, that, begin to study the scripture and ask to be… tremendous impact on the strength of God in my life and how to live out of that strength, and then, of course, to grow into stature of Christ in me.